RIPENING
SEASONS

Issue #29, End of year 1998

From the Barricades of a Too-busy Life

December 19, 1998 (as I begin)

Dear Everyone:

A great relief, to me, getting this issue up, and ready to go . .
. even if only a portion of it will actually get in the mail before
'99 begins. It has had several starts, going back as far as October
-- very different now, of course, from what it would have been then.
What I intended then will just have to wait another chance for the
telling. This one is about most of what has intervened.

Happily, the year's last week, or the larger part of it, still
remains for my ritual solitude and end-of-year summary. I have a file
of these, now, that goes back 30 years (though a bit spotty for the
first few). Close-to-the-happening reflections that will oneday
contribute to some real autobiography. If I ever get around to
it.

Maybe as a wan joke, but perhaps as the most effective commentary
I can make, on the nature of my life at this moment along its strange
course, I'm going to let this week-before-Christmas opening return to
the briefly misleading day, exactly a week earlier, when I
finally sat down to write this long delayed issue. Here is what I led
off with, on...

December 12, 1998

I cannot believe it. Something like an actual stretch of
free time on my hands! Somewhat illusory, to be sure, for the
coming week still has a few calendar entries, and God help me if I
ever had to locate a piece of writing on this desk, or welcome a
guest into this sordidly overburdened den of mine -- but the real
pressure is off, as of last night. And I have sworn not to let
anything of urgency, or even remotely resembling responsibility,
crowd me for the remaining few weeks of this year.

Well, Saturday to Saturday, here's what became of those sworn good
intentions . . .

On Monday morning, Bob Royer, the brother of a former Seattle
mayor, came by for an hour-long interview -- yes, welcomed into this
sordidly overburdened den of mine -- on how I see the Seattle Housing
Authority. A survey commissioned by SHA, in the dawning realization
that they are not loved by the community they serve.

On Tuesday, a phone call from a reporter on one of the city's two
big dailies, looking for detail and background on why the City
Council had stiffened, and rejected the Mayor's nominee for the new
but still vacant tenant seat on the SHA Board of Commissioners. He'd
gotten my name as a reference point from Peter Steinbrueck, chair of
the Council's Housing Committee. Steinbrueck had done a 180°
turn from the go-along stance he took when he went head-on with
several of us in an hour-long TV panel discussion, hardly a week
before.

On Thursday, the article came out, quoting me along with several
others, including the forsaken nominee, who opined that it was "just
politics," and I immediately sat down to email a Letter to the
Editor, pointing out that a lot more than "just politics" was
involved, including the Mayor's betrayal of the clear purpose of the
newly legislated Board seat.

Late that afternoon, I received a phone call from Velma Veloria,
the State Representative who had sponsored the legislative bill,
asking me to outline for her the three worst problems we have with
SHA, and our suggestions for resolving them. She needed it for a
meeting, next day, with the Assistant Mayor in charge of housing. I
was up until 3 a.m., putting it together for a fax transmission.

In between all these things, but a little more on the scheduled
side, was a get-together with the in-house group I have started here,
for Y2K preparedness (along with a flyer/newsletter to announce
same), and a seasonal party with my old writers group, for which I
baked a nut loaf and read them my 'two-hour special' -- a Y2K piece
that had taken me just that long to write (a few weeks prior), and
gained me a $100 'kill fee' -- which is the kiss-off when something
they asked you to write cannot be used.

Needless to say, anything on the order of free time had gone the
way of all the weeks preceding. But it's a typical December
disappointment, I suspect. If I were to riffle back through the
winter editions of this journalistic indulgence, and those that went
before, I think I'd find consistent references to the haunting notion
of mine that this season is for quiet ease and recoupment. Maybe not
always ease, given usual weather conditions, but certainly not
agitation. Yet, year after year, the disabuse sets in (or is it,
rather, the abuse?). It comes right along with the holiday rush and
the ever-increasing haste of our lives.

I wanted to talk about that "ever-increasing haste," and the
rather unusual poignancy of it, in this moment of winter crossing
into the final year of the century and millennium. For there are
elements of extreme irony in the circumstance that the very
technology we pay homage to, for the way it eases our time-burden,
has brought us, at long last, to a situation with not enough time
left to untangle the mess we've made, with it, in handling our
very measure of time! But I'd better, instead, fill you in on
how the year has taken me into the unseemly winter blitz that I've
been detailing.

I'll only give you the outline, because I don't want to bog this
issue down with it. You'll perhaps recall, from an August issue, that
we were able to get the City Council involved in the battle to save
this senior housing program, with some fair semblance of its charter
intact. One of the several fronts on which that battle was being
fought was the newly achieved legislation for a second tenant seat on
the Board of Commissioners, which was supposed to have been filled by
mayoral appointment in June. And I was a failed candidate for that
seat, as I made last-minute note of in that August issue. Not
unhappily, I shall once more emphasize.

Meanwhile, another front was about to open. The Housing Authority
was initiating an intensive series of tenant/management hearings and
discussions, with a view toward finally completing the policy changes
that we had interrupted almost three years ago. This time, however,
they had enough sense to fully involve the tenants, at every step of
the way.

Whether it was a real involvement or a careful staging, we had no
way of knowing. But a set of circumstances that neither we nor they
could foresee actually did give us some of the playing time,
and we used it to good advantage.

Virginia, the founder and energizer of the organized tenant group,
had decided for health reasons to leave town. With hardly a hope of
replacing her (for no one of equal commitment had ever turned up), we
managed to entice two relative newcomers to share the load -- and
discovered that one of them had a top echelon managerial background!
It was Joe Montana time! . . . but only long enough to see the
playing field become somewhat more level, before Nancy (our new
leader) came down with a raging intestinal cancer. She had succeeded,
in those few weeks, at changing the entire dynamic of interaction
between the two sides, along with gaining acknowledgement from the
Housing Board that program costs had been given nowhere near the
scrutiny that program revenues had received.

So it was a job only partially done, but -- together with
concessions they were probably already prepared to make -- we had
some gains to show for it. We had some losses, too, however, that
will upscale the economic level of the residency if allowed to stand,
though the Board of Commissioners has piously sworn that it should be
no greater than absolutely necessary.

All of it, plus the third -- if somewhat smaller -- front, of some
questionable manipulation to finance the renovation of this
particular building that I live in, was enough to keep Peter
Steinbrueck, of the City Counsel, pretty solidly in our corner, so
that when it came down to the nub, of standing up to the Mayor, he
was right there for us.

It has given me some name recognition and access to Seattle's
lowest level of power, and a bit of comfort in the use of it, so that
when I recently tried to find out how alert the city was to the Y2K
threat, I didn't feel I was going beyond my depth. But here, too, you
need a bit of backgrounding.

You'll recall, I'm sure, my fairly thorough explication of the Y2K
problem, mailed out early in October. I didn't receive an exorbitant
response to it, though many of you registered thanks, appreciation .
. . even enjoyment(?). Some did, however, reflect my own thinking on
the community aspect, while there were also concerned questions on
how best to deal with the problem. But I didn't sense any great deal
of alarm out there -- alarm as in "Good God, I'd better do something
while there's time!"

Admittedly, effective paths of action are rather hard to define.
But how about a 'thought experiment' that might illuminate the
terrain? Consider the proposition that you could know (as a
reasonable probability) that a sizable portion of the nation's
workforce would be going out on strike in exactly a year from now,
disrupting all sorts of services, and that no credible assurance
could be had, that the strike would soon be resolved.

I know that's hard to even imagine, but I'll give you a framework
for the experiment that at least has some appeal: Suppose it were to
come about as an endplay in the ultimate political gridlock, where
Senate Republicans, after a year-long tug of war, gradually garner
enough conviction votes to actually 'fire' the President, and the
Democrats, seeing this clearly down the road and knowing there is
absolutely nothing they can do to prevent it, make the do-or-die,
disaster be damned, threat: if the Repubs go through with it, every
offended Democrat in the country is going to walk off his/her job at
the stroke of January 1st, 2000, and not return until the ruling is
rescinded.

So there, my friends, you have the imaginary "certainty"
that -- whether you're a Repub or Dem -- you're headed for troubled
times and will have to take precautions for yourself . . . probably
others you care about, maybe your whole neighborhood. At the very
least, some sort of discussion in that neighborhood had better start
happening, so that ideas can be brought to bear, and resources
organized.

If you aren't pretty quickly thinking along these lines, I'd say
that you must be expecting someone else to do it for you, or off in
some cloudland . . . which is usually called Denial. I don't know how
much more clearly it can be said.

Okay, so you're trying to tell me this Y2K thing is no such
certainty. Not as to its dimensions, anyway. Well, if you can show me
a single business or government unit that operates a) without
computer systems, and b) without systems that link to other
(external) compu-ter systems, I'll start giving you points. There
will be damn few of them, and all small.

All the others have had a lot of costly work on their hands,
trying to remediate their systems, or -- as it's usually put -- bring
them into compliance with the new circumstances. So let me offer some
recent facts pertaining to the status of remediation and the
size of the job that remains to be done . . .

1. An October report from the federal Office of Management and
Budget, looking only at mission-critical systems, reports its
findings in three tiers of effectiveness. The top tier averages 76%
completion, led by the Social Security Administration (which has been
working on it since 1989); the middle tier (including
Treasury, HUD and Agriculture) is 42% complete on average; and the
lowest tier (Health and Human Services, Defense, Education,
Transportation, and State), is only 24% complete on average, with
DHHS (handling Medicare) specifically rated as 7% complete.

At the time of that OMB report, John Koskinen, our national Y2K
'czar' (who has no computer background, himself) had targeted the end
of this year for a 90% completion average. The date has since been
moved forward to the end of March '99.

2. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has required of
all public corporations a quarterly disclosure of Y2K compliance
status. As of the start of 1998 (and remember: SSA has been at it for
9 years), 19% had completed their assessment and were into the
remediation work; 39% were still doing assessment; 12% were about to
get started on assessment; and 30% made no mention whatever of Y2K
status.

In making projections as to the quarter that would see
"substantial completion" of their remediation work, here is what the
Fortune500 group, among those public corporations, have since
announced:

already complete..............1.4%;

end of this year.............15.4%;

first quarter of '99...........8.6%;

second quarter of '99.....33.0%;

third quarter of '99..........8.4%;

end of '99..........................4.5%

. . . and a single corporation that will not make it before
2000.

3. As to small businesses (under 200 employees), a Gallup study
early this year revealed that 80% were aware of the Y2K issue, 23%
considered it "somewhat serious," 6% felt it was "very serious," 50%
planned on taking no action on it.

4. As to state government, an October meeting of Chief Information
Officers brought out the following data:

Of the 80% whose remediation work is actually underway, 6%
have completed 50-75% of the work, 50% have completed 25-50% of
it, and 26% are still below the 25% line. Only a single state
(Pennsylvania) claims more than 90% completion.

On mission-critical systems, 41% report full compliance.

On the data transfer requirements between state and federal
agencies, 35 of the 50 states are "almost complete" with their
compliance, but ten states have not yet even advised the Feds as
to who in the state is responsible for it.

5. Data on local government, which is a primary community concern,
is very spotty, but there is this, from an October USA Today article
. . .

A New York state survey indicates that 54% of towns, 48% of
villages, and 26% of cities had not yet made Y2K plans.

California's preliminary survey of 402 cities, communities and
special districts revealed that 25% had no Y2K action plan, and
42% had no funds budgeted for it.

A private survey by a firm that provides technology advice to
local governments found that 57% feel they have nothing to fear
from Y2K.

Additionally, an Ohio State Auditor survey revealed that
nearly half of the cities in the state had no one in charge of Y2K
work, more than half had not developed a project plan, and more
than a third had not yet completed a systems inventory to set
priorities. Less than half of the state's 88 county offices
even responded to the survey.

Two more points should be brought into the picture before the
foregoing facts can be properly contexted: Except for the mention of
federal/state data transfer requirements, all the above stats concern
in-house systems. Computer data, however, is routinely and
extensively passed from one organization to another, introducing two
additional elements of systems viability: both ends of the data
transfer must be compliant, and they must be compliant in a format
that matches. Unfortunately, no standard has been universally
adopted, and it happens that there are at least six different methods
of data remediation, with no two of them mutually compatible.

And lastly, all of the above has to do with data processing
systems. It does not get into the volatile area of embedded
microchips, a minefield of its own, as to expectable surprises.
Hospitals, satellites, mechanical processing, factory machinery,
airports, automated electronics of every sort, traffic control
equipment, gas pumps, even recent model automobiles (since '95),
represent a vast array of future uncertainties, not entirely knowable
until their moment of truth arrives.

If you're still not especially concerned, you might consider the
further fact that Canada has a martial law fall-back contingency in
place, and something of the same sort was unintendedly revealed in
Britain, recently. It's hardly believable that the U.S. has no such
plan on the boards, but it would never be acknowledged, here, in
advance . . . our society is not that open. Sure, these are only
outside contingencies, but not beyond possibility. They convey, and
actually represent, a greater degree of uncertainty and official
precaution than the government's glowing assurances would have us
believe.

But it's so much easier to continue thinking of it as:

a) not OUR problem, but

b) ...the ultimate task of those elected or authorized to
handle it, and

c) beyond the scope of anything WE can do for it, anyway . . .
. . . . Right?

Is that truly your last barrier of resistance? Because I'm going
to take it apart, brick by brick, starting with a brief report of my
Y2K dealings with the Seattle City Council, and finishing with some
very clear advice on what WE CAN DO about it.

Trading on the familiarity I've established, in the housing
action, with at least a couple members of the Council, I forwarded by
email, to the entire nine of them, a community-focused Web article,
along with a short note expressing my concern about community
preparedness. I got back a single brief note, telling me how much is
being spent on the revision of data systems . . . but not a word on
community preparedness.

I followed it up, then, with another article about Boston's
community efforts, thinking that a comparable city's approach might
get them to see the point, and I sent a separate email to Nick
Licata, one of my Council favorites, pointing out how the earlier
response had completely missed it. This brought a frazzled reply:
"Quite honestly, I'm swamped. I can't deal with this problem because
of lack of time and knowledge..." and he went on to recommend that I
contact Councilwoman "Tina P.," who is responsible for dealing with
Y2K.

Fine. I turned my attention to Tina P., who reportedly has a
Microsoft background. After a few of my nightly forwardings, a
response arrived with what seemed a gush of indulgent concern:
"...what would you like us to consider doing ... this might be a very
timely discussion to have with the Citizen's Technology and Telecom
Advisory Board ... it would be helpful if you have a summary of what
you'd like us to consider. Please let me know..."

Having just given a 3-minute presentation to the Housing Authority
Board, on the topic, it seemed perfectly right to forward it to Tina
P. And since she had obligingly (though I now think, unintendedly)
listed all the folks on the Advisory Board, to whom she had copied
her message to me, I emailed copies to them, also. It may have been a
bad move, considered pushy, for I waited and waited but heard nothing
more from her.

After a month had passed, I figured it was time to put Tina P.
back on my forwarding list, so she could peruse some of the nightly
material I was sending out. The first batch went through, but then
she put some kind of filter-block on her email box, and I could get
through no longer. Tina P. had shut me out.

Two strikes down, and one more to go. Directly after the TV panel
hour with my other favorite Councilman, Peter Steinbrueck, I put my
Y2K concerns to him. He was Denial personified: "Somehow, that issue
just doesn't grab me ... What is there we could do about it, anyway
... Look, we got along without computer systems up to 30 or 40 years
ago, and if need be we can do it again."

Delightful innocence! We got along without automobiles, telephones
and radio up to a hundred years ago . . . we got along without
washing machines and refrigerators up to fifty years ago . . . C'mon,
Peter, you're living in a deluded reality if you think we can step
right back into it, without incredible displacement and hardship.

Well, the issue grabs me! And all the more so because of that
conversation. When I can see that a city of a half-million, upwards,
may credibly be paralyzed in a year, and the City Council feels no
great amount of concern about it, I know we've got some
preparedness work to do! Community, at one level or another, has
been at the core of my life for the past thirty years, and this is
where I put all of that background to use. It may even be precisely
what it was grounding me for.

So brew yourself a cup of tea, and we'll look at what has to, and
can, be done . . .

Forget all that bushwa about arming yourself and heading for the
hills. That is an absolutely nowhere solution, doomed to cut you off
from the very resources you'll need: other people -- their comfort,
ideas, and energy. This is strictly a community matter.

Community means networking . . . getting together with others, and
talking about it. And community, in this instance, has to mean the
people you live with/near/among. If there already exists such a
community for you, fine -- start working with it. If it doesn't
exist, then you have to start putting it together. Everyone
lives in a potential community setting. You discover its full
potential by calling a meeting.

Not everyone will come, and that's okay. You'll get a few, and
it's all you need for a start. It's not difficult to find resources
for the first meeting. Utne Reader has just come out with an
excellent little community-centered handbook, 120 pages for $4.95.
Once you see it, you'll want to order it in bulk: 50 copies or more
at $1 each, plus shipping. (These are proffered for fund-raising
resale, but that of course is up to you). There is also a profusion
of resources on the Web, and I will close this with a number of URL
addresses. If you haven't your own computer, I'm sure you can connect
with someone who does.

After whatever initial and get-acquainted talk is necessary,
orient your group toward an action plan. Most group confusion
and failure results from the lack of specific and positive directions
to pursue. That plan should include, at the very least: goals,
organization, individual or committee assignments, and a specific
follow-up (next meeting) provision.

Exactly what the plan and assignments are to consist of is up to
the group; but here are a few recommendations, using the term,
neighborhood, to mean whatever size community you are dealing with: a
building, a block, or larger . . .

1. Postering or leafleting the neighborhood with details about the
group and its purpose.

2. Getting coverage in the local and neighborhood media.

3. Checking out larger meeting space.

4. Organizing a preparedness storage center, for stocking up on:
emergency supplies, warm clothing/blankets, food, water,
non-electrical heating equipment, emergency tools... etc. (The
rationale for this is that many in the neighborhood will not have
prepared, and may have to be taken care of by the rest).

5. Resource survey of the neighborhood: special tools or
equipment, information sources (medical or country survival
handbooks, etc.), critical skills that could be on call for emergency
use (medical, ham radio or CB, repair trades, and just plain
manpower).

6. Emergency provision for power failure, including centralized
and sheltered group cooking facilities (non-electric, of course);
possibly staffing a central canteen.

14. Certifying the extent of any special planning by local
emergency facilities, especially those nearby (partly to let them
know that residents are alert and concerned).

15. Conducting "Y2K orientations" for those who will come late to
the awareness.

At bottom, you know, this is nothing more pretentious or foolhardy
than utilizing a damn good basis for bringing community process back
into our lives, after it has pretty effectively been dismantled by
the social forces (consumerism, TV, me-ism, upward striving,
population mobility, a nouveau workaholism, etc.) that have taken us
down the path of fragmentation and its inevitable by-product:
helplessness.